In the debates and campaign ads leading up to the New Hampshire primary a new strain of Republican politics has suddenly surfaced — a brand of compassionate capitalism that, were it to come from President Obama, Newt Gingrich would describe as socialism.

Gingrich has led this emergence with his blistering critique of Mitt Romney for being too good of a capitalist. There’s even a movie produced by a pro-Gingrich super-PAC that powerfully tells how Romney ruined people’s lives in his relentless quest for profits. Driven by the words of fired workers and a riveting anti-corporate script that could have been written by Michael Moore, Romney is blasted for shamelessly making big money by closing American businesses and eliminating thousands of jobs. I must admit, it's exciting to see what it looks like when the GOP puts capitalism on trial. In the past Romney would have been a Republican hero, a businessman who had what it takes to make tough economic decisions. But in this latest bizarre phase of GOP presidential politics, the guy is a monster.

Apparently the Republican field also hates special interest money in politics and the revolving door between government and corporate America. For weeks the candidates have hammered Gingrich for taking $1.6 million from Fannie Mae to be a “historian.” He’s laughably insisted that he never lobbied any of his former colleagues to earn that fee. Ron Paul and others have whaled on Rick Santorum for taking lobbying money from coal companies and insurers after he left the U.S. Senate. Imagine, a former elected official trading influence for cash!

But if Romney’s critics were serious (and they’re not), they'd be saying an “anything goes” approach to the free market isn't right. They would say he and all the other Wall Street sharpshooters made money at the expense of others and wronged thousands of innocent folks who believed in the American Dream.

The Republican hypocrisy is whiplash-inducing, even by the declining standards of American politics. Not that long ago Gingrich said that U.S. Senator Chris Dodd and U.S. Representative Barney Frank should go to jail for passing the landmark financial reform law that bears their names because it regulates the Romneys of Wall Street. Meanwhile the Republicans in Congress are practically employees of banks, Big Oil, insurance companies and other corporations that put profits before people.

As the candidates head into South Carolina, maybe they’ll reveal what they propose to do about the outrageous free-market excesses they’ve discovered. Exactly how would they control the Romneys of the world—teach classes on compassion and restraint at Harvard and Wharton? How have they explained this to their corporate owners and political sponsors like the billionaire Koch Brothers? I suspect the Kochs have a lot of respect for Bain Capital, the corporate vehicle Romney used for his turbocharged pursuit of private equity profits. Bain Capital made money by snatching up companies on the cheap, stripping valuable assets and even shutting some of them down. Bain collected a ton of cash while eliminating jobs and devastating families and communities. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Since the Republican presidential candidates say they like regular people now – even working and middle-class folks like the ones who give testimonials in the attack film against Romney – they should tell the Republicans in Congress to extend unemployment insurance and the payroll tax reduction. And they ought to pay for it by imposing higher taxes on the super-rich, a policy overwhelmingly supported by the American people, including the millionaires who would have to pay more.

The Republicans running for president will obviously say and do anything to get elected, even if they sound like Democrats for a little while. Whatever they may say about Romney, all the Republicans are captives of big corporations that see our country as little more than a market to exploit for their private gain.

The 1 percent and the Republican politicians they own are tearing away the foundation of one of our country’s greatest inventions, the middle class. Led by the Koch Brothers, right-wing extremists are working to undermine our democracy as well.

That’s why the Democrats have to make the 2012 election about whose side the candidates are on. Are they for the 1% and the big corporations that want to destroy the middle class, or are they fighting for the rest of us? Are they for an America “where everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share,” as the President said in Osawatomie, Kansas? Or are they for an America where the rich get richer while everyone else is left to fend for themselves in an ugly race to the bottom.

These are very different visions of our country. That’s why members of Congress and the President can’t give any ground on key issues like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. If everyone is in favor of cuts to these and other important programs, then the boundary between the two sides will be blurred beyond recognition, and the choice will not be clear on Election Day.

This post has been updated with videos and a photo from Friday's event.

Here is a great video of the event from the Other 98%.

This is a video of the march: Occupy the Kochs - Guerrilla Drive-In

From Velvet Revolution: Koch Brothers Guerrilla Drive-In Protest at Wash Convention Center

This photo was taken by Common Cause. You can view more of their photos from the event here.

Thanks for Making the Occupy the Koch Brothers Guerrilla Drive-In a Huge Success!

Thank you to the 1,000 people who turned out Friday night, November 4, 2011, for the "Occupy the Kochs Guerrilla Drive-In" at the Washington Convention Center. Health Care for America Now and the advocacy group The Other 98% led the protest of the billionaire Kochs Brothers' front group, Americans for Prosperity, which hosted a gala dinner that night as part of a two-day conference featuring speeches by GOP presidential candidates Herman Cain and Mitt Romney.

Numerous progressive organizations teamed up with HCAN and the Other 98% to protest the Koch Brothers' corruption of the American political system at the unusual outdoor film festival. Americans for Prosperity, which spends millions advancing its extremist right-wing political agenda with the financial support of billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and their companies, held the "Defend the American Dream" event to celebrate efforts to protect the richest people and corporations from paying their fair share in taxes and to eliminate important programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Protesters gathered at the Guerrilla Drive-In to enjoy popcorn, good food and political satire videos highlighting the Kochs' efforts to destroy the American Dream, shrink the middle class, increase America's growing income inequality, preserve tax breaks for special interests like Big Oil and strip workers of their rights. They sang satirical songs and marched around the massive Convention Center complex.

The protest showed that Americans are not going to accept a corporate takeover of our country. The event we started drew hundreds of Occupy DC and Occupy K Street people who joined in with our action. Later, those activists staged actions of their own around the hall.

"The Kochs and their front groups are trying to steal our democracy to make the 1% even richer," said HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome. "They and their cronies have purchased the Republican Party to destroy America's middle class, including taking away health care and stripping workers of the right to bargain for a better life. Across the country people are raising their voices in protest because they're fed up with a system stacked in favor of the richest 1%."

"The Koch brothers are not just the 1% — they are the .00001%," said John Sellers, co-founder of The Other 98%, which co-produced the Drive-In with HCAN. "They are the poster children for the hostile corporate takeover of our democracy, and it's about time they heard from the rest of us."

Occupy the Kochs comes as progressives across the country have been speaking out to put Americans back to work, tax the 1% and pressure the Super Committee not to make a bad deal for the 99%. For more than a month, Americans of all ages and backgrounds have been on the streets expressing their rejection of corporate money in politics at Occupy events and other movement protests across the U.S., and Occupy the Kochs demonstrates that the momentum for change is building.

Here are the progressive groups that joined up with HCAN and the Other 98% to stage the Guerrilla Drive-In: Campaign for America's Future, Campaign for Community Change, Common Cause, Justice Through Music, Oil Change International, Public Campaign, Public Citizen, Rebuild the Dream, Tar Sands Action, True Majority, USAction, and Velvet Revolution.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

Florida Gov. Rick Scott wants to cheat the families of his state out of $140 million in health insurance rebates. If Scott gets his way, it could harm consumers across the country.

Ripping off consumers and the health care system isn't new to Florida Gov. Rick Scott. He got rich leading a hospital company that paid a record $1.7 billion in criminal fines and civil penalties to the Justice Department for systematically defrauding federal health care programs. Scott went on to lead a high-profile campaign against health reform backed by the infamous right-wing billionaire Koch Brothers, and Scott used that campaign as a springboard to the governorship.

Now Scott wants his state to be exempted from federal rules that would require insurance companies to send $140 million in premium rebates to families over the next three years. Enter the big winners, the health insurance companies that will get the money instead of Florida's hard-working families.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) enacted last year, health insurers that fail to spend at least 80% of your premiums on actual health services must give the difference back to consumers. This is one of the best and possibly least known provisions in health care reform. It requires insurance companies to become more efficient and keep less money for profits and CEO salaries. It says that people paying premiums should get more value for their money.

The goal of the rule isn't to force companies to pay consumer rebates, it's to hold insurance companies accountable and get them to change their behavior. But if they don't, they're supposed to pay, and they shouldn't get off the hook just because they like their profits more than the new law. They should not be rewarded for failing to meet a basic standard because they can get politicians like Scott to take their side.

And let's not forget the most important thing: While insurance companies are making record profits, struggling families are desperate for relief. The people of Florida need the $140 million they're owed. But consumers won't get their money if Rick Scott gets his way. The Republican governor — who's been doing everything in his power to thwart implementation of the ACA — has been shamelessly trying to manipulate the law to pad the pockets of a private health insurance industry that will collect $934 billion in premiums this year.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty is doing Scott's dirty work. McCarty is a staunch opponent of the ACA who recently led an unsuccessful effort to gut the 80% rule at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. For his efforts, the National Association of Health Underwriters honored McCarty with the "Spirit of Independence Award." So the insurance industry can count on the insurance commissioner.

McCarty recently asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to give Florida's insurance companies special treatment. In order to get an exemption to the 80% rule, a state is supposed to meet some basic criteria, principally proving that its insurance market would be destabilized by the rule.

Florida doesn't meet any of the criteria, and its application to HHS fails to provide any supporting evidence. As Health Care for America Now (HCAN) detailed in a letter to HHS, the state offered no evidence that insurers would leave the state market, that consumers would have to do without the services of agents and brokers, or that anyone would go without coverage due to the rule. That's why HCAN asked HHS to reject Florida's request. Other national groups and 19 Florida health care and consumer organizations have done the same.

HCAN also asked HHS to hold a public hearing. Such a hearing would be the first of its kind — and the first opportunity for Florida's consumers to have any input on their state government's attempt to rob them of $140 million. It would also force the insurance companies seeking this special treatment to publicly face the consumers who will lose the millions of dollars they're entitled to under the ACA.

The Patient Bill of Rights in the ACA is about stopping insurance company abuses, and the 80% rule is an important part of it.

If Florida can get an unjustified exemption to this rule, it would send the message that anything goes, that the rule doesn't really matter and that insurance companies and the Republican politicians they own are in charge. We're counting on HHS and the Obama Administration to do the right thing and deny Florida's bogus request.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

America's families and small businesses are barely hanging on while the Wall Street-run health insurance profit machines have been jacking up rates and providing less care. That's why it makes sense for Occupy Wall Street protesters to occupy them as well.

In an excellent post on Monday, former health insurance industry insider Wendell Potter suggested that protesters target the Washington, D.C., offices of the insurance industry's lobbying arm. He's right. People should also demonstrate at the corporate offices of the biggest Wall Street-run companies: Aetna and Cigna in Hartford, Conn., WellPoint in Indianapolis, Humana in Louisville and UnitedHealth in Minneapolis.

Much has been said about the banks and credit card companies that are headquartered on Wall Street. The health insurance companies' relentless pursuit of profit and callous disregard for people offers another window into how big corporations have abused people and twisted the economy to serve their own interests.

Health insurance companies make excessive profits, hoard massive amounts of cash, overcharge their customers and give their top executives obscene paychecks.

While we've been dealing with the crushing impact of the worst recession since the Great Depression, the top five health insurance companies have been celebrating boom years thanks to record profits that are expected to total $14 billion in 2011, an astonishing 80% increase since 2008. They did it by raising rates 131% since 1999.

After the insurers gouge us and line their CEOs' pockets, they hoard billions of dollars. As of Dec. 31, 2010, the nation's for-profit and nonprofit health insurance companies were holding $97.3 billion to cover unexpected medical claims - six times more than state regulators require, according to Citigroup Global Markets.

Not surprisingly, insurance company CEOs and executives have been compensated at obscene levels for producing such enormous profits for Wall Street. The chief executives of America's 10 largest health insurance companies were paid $228 million in 2009, up from $33 million in 2000. In that 10-year period, health insurance CEOs received nearly $1 billion in total compensation, and that doesn't even count hundreds of millions more in unreported exercises of stock options during that period. We've got 9% unemployment, falling wages and a declining standard of living, and these guys are taking raises that stagger the imagination.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are uninsured, and millions more have inadequate coverage. The Affordable Care Act is changing things for the better, but full implementation can't come soon enough. That's why so many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters say health care is a major issue for them. Many don't have insurance, and they're worried they never will. And while Wall Street and the big corporations are wreaking havoc on the country, Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to make things worse by trying to repeal consumer-friendly reforms like the health care law and bank regulation and trying to eliminate middle-class programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

At the core of the hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protests across the country is anger over the simple fact that the wealthiest 1% and the corporations they own are getting even richer while the rest of us - the 99% who built this country and make it work - are getting poorer. Our perverse economy has produced such extreme income inequality that it is destroying the very essence of America.

The right-wing Republican extremists who work for the 1% like the Koch Brothers think it's the protesters who are destroying America. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor calls the protestors "growing mobs." GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, who is not burdened by Cantor's restraint, calls the Wall Street demonstrators "un-American."

Some in the media complain that they can't figure out what the protesters want. It seems pretty obvious to me. They want jobs and health care and homes. They want an end to unbridled corporate greed. They want the opportunity to realize their full potential in the greatest country on earth. And they want their political leaders to stand up for them, not the 1%. That's why they started this movement on Wall Street, the financial capital of the world, and that's why the politicians should support the protesters instead of calling them names.

Here are two things you can do to support the movement against corporate greed:

• To find an Occupy event near you, go to the website Occupy Together.
  
• Join The Other 98 Percent and Health Care for America Now in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 4 to protest a fancy gala dinner being held by a Koch Brothers front group. The "American Dream Guerrilla Drive-In" counter-event starts at 8 p.m.

Today HCAN released a statement on Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg's latest plan to devastate middle-class families.

Below is a great piece on this issue by Rick Unger for Mother Jones:

GOP Congressman Equates Purchasing Health Insurance To Buying An Expensive Vacation Home

-By Rick Ungar | Thu Oct. 6, 2011 10:22 AM PDT

Just when you thought it could not get more ridiculous, GOP Congressman and Chairman of the House Appropriations Labor-Health and Human Services subcommittee, Denny Rehberg, has come up with a novel idea. He wants the Congressional super committee to solve $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction by simply killing off the expansion of Medicaid and the subsidies that will open the door to health care for millions of Americans.

In making his argument, Rehberg noted that expanding the Medicaid safety net program, and providing subsidies to low and middle class workers, is akin to the "expensive vacation home" that the average American would choose not to buy if that American was facing a deficit as serious as the nation's.

Before getting to the heart of Rehberg's suggestion, one can't help but wonder what makes the Congressman think that the "average" American can afford an expensive vacation home (or any vacation home for that matter) on what the average American earns, even if that American is not in debt?

But should we be surprised by the Congressman's view of the world? This is the same Denny Rehberg who is not only listed as number 23 on the list of the wealthiest members of Congress, but is the same Congressman Rehberg who had no idea what the minimum wage was in his own state (check out this video as it is priceless.)

Of course, far more important is Rehberg's inability to grasp that getting treatment for cancer or unblocking that clogged artery that is going to make someone a widow or widower is not quite the same as purchasing a vacation home-expensive or otherwise.

And while life might not be worth living for Rep. Rehberg and friends without that idyllic home on the lake, the average American would still prefer to remain alive, thank you very much, which is precisely why Medicaid coverage was extended to more people and subsidies are to be made available to the working poor and middle-class so that medical care would become an option in their lives.

When asked how low and middle class Americans will manage to purchase health care, should the mandate requiring them to do so be found to be Constitutional by SCOTUS, Rehberg answered that Health and Human Services would be able to grant waivers to those who cannot afford coverage without Medicaid or subsidies.

Thus, Rehberg's solution is to simply leave millions of Americans without coverage by way of a waiver. Nice.

Health Care For America Now's Executive Director, Ethan Rome, put it this way:

Rep. Rehberg's proposal is yet another part of the Republican assault on the middle class. Denny Rehberg says that basic health care is a luxury item, as if a mother in Montana taking her children to the doctor or a cancer patient getting treatment is the same as buying 'an expensive vacation home.'

Considering that estimates place the uninsured under age 65 in Montana at somewhere between 16 percent and 20 percent of the population, a number well in excess of the national average, I suspect that Rehberg's fellow Montana might disagree with his approach.

Let's hope they voice that disagreement at the ballot box next November.

In case you haven't seen HCAN in the Washington Post: Anger of "Occupy Wall Street" supporters fueled by concerns about lack of affordable health care.

For Immediate Release - SEPTEMBER 23, 2011

Contact: Avram Goldstein 202-587-1634
agoldstein@healthcareforamericanow.org

Washington, DC - Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, released the following statement from HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome on the Republican presidential candidate debate and today's first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act's Patient Bill of Rights:

"During a discussion of vaccines at the GOP presidential debate last night, Rick Perry said, ‘I will always err on the side of life, as a governor and as the President of the United States.' If only that were so. The Texas governor has for years demonstrated his lack of concern for life by not lifting a finger to reduce the skyrocketing population of uninsured Texans. One of every four Texas residents has no health insurance, forcing many of them to go without access to life-saving care. The state rate is an astonishing 62% higher then thenational rate, meaning Texans are far more likely to die prematurely or file for bankruptcy.

"Perry isn't the only one suffering from severe health care denial. The Republicans in last night's debate used extremist language to attack the Affordable Care Act at least 17 times. All of them would rather spout their ideological boilerplate than admit that the health care law has broken the insurance companies' death grip on our care.

"Here's the reality: Today marks one year since the health care law's Patient Bill of Rights took effect, enabling 1 million uninsured young adults to get health coverage. It has ended insurance company abuses like lifetime limits on health benefits and bans on excluding children with pre-existing conditions from coverage. This law hasgiven millions of seniors more affordable prescription drugs and free preventive care through Medicare. But the Republicans are holding fast to their anti-Obama talking points, so don't expect to hear those inconvenient truths from them."

-30-

Health Care for America Now is the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past three years to win passage of health reform and to keepCongress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.

Check out today's article from Kaiser Health News - "Federal Officials Try Again to Bolster Plans For People With Medical Conditions".  Thousands of consumers with pre-existing conditions are seeing dramatically lower health care costs thanks to the Affordable Care Act.

Federal Officials Try Again to Bolster Plans For People With Medical Conditions

By Michelle Andrews

Jul 05, 2011

How low can they go? Experts agreed that pricey premiums for the new “pre-existing condition insurance plans” created under the health care overhaul were partly to blame for anemic enrollment in the plans, which reached just 21,454 after several months, compared with potentially hundreds of thousands that had been projected.

Starting July 1, the Obama administration reduced premiums by up to 40 percent in 17 states and the District of Columbia where it runs the new high-risk programs and encouraged other states to follow suit. The reductions were possible because federal officials now have state-specific data that allowed them to more accurately peg the premiums to the rates for individual plans in the state, as the law requires, says Steven Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Another provision of the health reform law could help make the plans—which are aimed at people with medical conditions who can’t get coverage on the private individual market—even more affordable.

Under the law, starting in 2012 insurers must spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on medical claims, as opposed to administration or profit, or pay rebates to consumers for the excess amount collected.

Some insurers are already reducing premiums to meet the new “medical loss ratio” requirements. (Medical claims paid are considered losses in insurance jargon.) If tough economic times continue and people cut back on medical care, experts say other insurers may follow suit. “Plans are getting nervous about how big the rebates they’re going to have to pay are,” says Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University who’s a consumer representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

If insurers lower premiums in the individual market to meet the law’s new MLR requirements, that could be good news for the PCIP programs, whose rates are supposed to be no higher than standard rates in a state’s individual market.

Talk about further reductions can wait for another day. “It’s possible,” that the medical loss ratio requirements might further depress premiums in the PCIPs, says Larsen. However, “I wouldn’t care to speculate about that.”

Read more about high-risk insurance plans.

On Thursday, May 2nd, HCAN's Executive Director, Ethan Rome testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health.  The hearing was entitled “PPACA’s Effects on Maintaining Health Coverage and Jobs: A Review of the Health Care Law’s Regulatory Burden.”

Excerpt from Ethan Rome's testimony:

While much of the country is still struggling in this tough economy, health insurance companies have posted record profits with premiums that are crushing America’s families, seniors and businesses. That’s why the provisions of the law that hold the health insurance companies accountable, end their worst abuses and curb unreasonable rate hikes are a critical part of the ACA.

Thanks to the law, we now have a minimum percentage of our premiums that insurers must spend on actual medical care instead of wasteful overhead, excessive profits, and bloated executive compensation.

This rule, known as the medical-loss ratio, combats the long-term downward trend in insurers’ spending on medical care as a percentage of premiums…

When we hear opponents of the ACA talk about repeal, what they’re really talking about is protecting excessive insurance company profits and giving our health care back to the insurance companies.

Read Ethan Rome's full testimony (including supporting documents) as submitted to the House Energy and Commerce Committee here.

By Ethan Rome - Executive Director, Health Care for America Now

The health insurance industry's mouthpiece doesn't want the rest of us to know what Wall Street knows well — the record-breaking profits of the health insurance companies are, in fact, excessive.

In response to astonishingly high first-quarter profit reports from health insurance companies, the industry trade group America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), claims it is among the least profitable health care industries. AHIP says the health insurance industry profit margin is only 4.4%, and that this "low margin" represents less than one penny out of every dollar spent on all health care in the U.S. These are simplistic and misleading statistics.

Last week the New York Times reported that the health insurance industry is enjoying record earnings while millions of Americans get less medical care. Wall Street investors are delighted with the industry's profits, and to health insurance executives, that's all that counts. Insurance CEOs want investors to buy their stock and keep share prices marching higher, and that's exactly what has happened. To achieve excessive profits, insurers are happy to gouge consumers and small businesses, do little to rein in medical costs and spend billions of our premium dollars on lobbying, secret political activities, bloated executive pay and stock buybacks.

AHIP's focus on profit margins is misleading and designed to protect their massive income by shifting attention away from their return on equity — a key measure of profits as a percentage of the amount invested. That return is a phenomenal 16.1% as of today. By that measure, health insurers are ranked fourth highest of the 16 industries in the health care sector. They also deliver a higher return for investors than cellphone companies, beer companies, mortgage companies, life insurance companies, TV broadcasters, drug store companies or grocery stores.

AHIP likes to talk about how insurance profits are a small share of national health spending — less then one penny of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. — but that is an absurd, deceptive and self-serving statistic. Yet even their own chart of this data shows that the share of the health care economy sucked up by health insurance profits has more than tripled over the past decade.

One penny of the health care dollar is worth $347 billion over 10 years ending in 2019. That one penny would pay for more than one-third of the entire cost of the health reform program.

In response to a memo that Health Care for America Now (HCAN) sent to news outlets yesterday, AHIP attacked HCAN for pointing out the insurance industry's misleading use of statistics. Yet AHIP did not challenge the validity of HCAN's critique. That makes sense, because they are wrong on this issue.

The health insurance industry is also wrong to oppose the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by bankrolling the Republican repeal effort. The ACA expands coverage, ends the worst insurance company abuses, reduces health care costs, and reduces the federal deficit while building on the private insurance system.

The Republicans' relentless opposition to the law is a naked appeal to their extreme right-wing base and an attack on people already benefiting from it — millions of seniors, children, young adults, families and small businesses. It's time for AHIP to turn away from Republican politics and vigorously support implementation of the law.